Beads... beads and more beads!

Its actually interesting the way my brain works (but scary no doubt LOL).  First I work hard to get beads made, then I flitter off and do some off mandrel work.... then I flitter off again and try out some strange "I had a dream in the middle of the night" sort of torch session.  I really do wish I could exercise some self control and settle down to doing just the one thing each day!!!!

Given my excitement at the fact that Creative Beading Mazagine has just done a profile on yours truly.... not just a wee little mention.... but a whopping three and a half whole pages!!!!  I thought I should actually put some stuff into my etsy store... specifically some beads... just in case anyone wants a Natalie Monkivitch special if you know what I mean!

Well, when I checked the pathetic stash, there was hardly a bead to be found, so off to the torch I have gone... with a mission.... to make a set.  Yep for those that know me well the word set usually sets my knees to knocking and causes a watery feeling the bowels.... Set allergy it might be called (but slack arse lack of self discipline it really is)!!

I am very pleased to say that I did manage not one set.... but two fairly big (for me) sets.  I also got right into the swing of bead making again, not that I had stopped or anything, but I had definitely been distracted.  I have had a real ball with it.  First off here is the first set I made using scrap twisties off my workbench, they are italian soft glass and using the bead press (another thing I am usually averse to).

Green Scrap bead set

After being so pleased at the success of the first set, and with the satisfied feeling that I had actually knuckled down and achieved something, I made some twisties for a second set in different colours.  I hope everyone notices that I EVEN made the spacers to match..... yahoo!!!

Pink, blue and turquoise twistie scrap bead set

Amazingly I have managed to photograph them and list them in my etsy, although I will admit to a fairly lengthy delay in removing them from the mandrels and cleaning them.... I seemed to keep walking past and thinking of something more interesting to do ..... as other glass bead makers will attest... cleaning beads is not the funnest part of the whole process!!!

Of course I went back for a second torch session and made some off mandrel cabochons for some more pocket watches.... I particularly like this dragons eye one.... I don't even know why, but it looked rather cool in real life.  It probably won't sell or anything, but that is part of the problem with making things only to your own tastes... I hardly ever make anything yellow or orange unless it is for a particular person, its time I branched out a bit I reckon!!!

Dragons eye cabochon on pocket watch

 

My brain is bursting with ideas.....

Well, after returning from working as a tech assist for Loren Stump for two weeks and standing and watching the students all melting glass (well, not just standing there of course, but you get the gist I am sure) I have got home and have gone into a glass melting frenzy!   I have been making murrini and beads like a steamtrain......  Some have come out ok, some NOT!  Its interesting that when you are working and not a student you really do miss out on some of the finer points of how to do things, I am of course wishing I had done the course as a paying student right now, but appreciate Gail at Goglass (www.goglassart.com.au) letting me work with such a great bloke and being exposed to a miriad of new ideas.  I feel frenzied to melt glass and try out new idea's .... always a good thing I am sure!

I made myself some of the 3D clownfish Loren showed the class and boy did I wish I had actually stayed to watch how he did it.  Mine look a bit more like a squirrel fish (those ugly ones with disproportionately large eyes) and then I forgot the mouth and adding it afterwards... well its not recommended lets put it that way!

 One good thing is that I have decided to make more beads using my own murrini.  It seems mental that I tend not to use them myself and yet I see the lovely stuff my customers make with them and drool...... doh!   The frog in the jungle bead above is the first bead I have used this particular leaf cane  on and I am quite happy with it - although the frogs legs are not very well done, it did give the green leafy jungle feel and after all that is what I was going for.

This bead is where I have moved on a little from my frog on a lily pond beads I had started on before going to work with Loren.  This one I applied a bit of yellow rose cane as a waterlily and popped a dragonfly slice on top of that.  I am loving the green growth on the side at the right too (based on ascidians, water filtering animals in the ocean) but I need to do more work on the koi fish on the bottom layer and are thinking I might make some koi murrini for them rather than a swipe of white with some orange and black spots.

I am still trolling my way slowly though the gorgeous work at the Bead Soup Blog Swap and there are some fabulous and inspiring pieces of art to drool over.  I figure it might take me a week or so before I get though, but I will read all of them.  I have tried to comment on them, but either through my own stupidity or the internet systems some use, can't work out how to have a say..... sometimes I make myself wonder I tell you! 

Time for the Bead soup to be sent off!!!

I am VERY excited to be participating in my very first bead soup blog party and I now have my swap partner Niky......YAY.  She makes the most gorgeous chain maille jewellery you have ever seen, you can find her here http://silverniknats.blogspot.com/.  The only problem I am having now, is the usual anxiety associated with swapping with someone you don't know and worrying that you might send too much, not enough (not likely to be a problem, I would rather overcater for a party if you know what I mean), its ugly, they won't like it, it just doesn't inspire them or even worse kills thier mojo outright..... you know, the usual exchange/swap stuff.... Ha ha ha ha!  Next I am sure I will be worried about doing her lovely bead soup some justice, goodness knows I can make jewellery when I put my mind to it, but this isn't just slapping some beads onto tiger tail, I want to really make something fabulous...lets hope the grey matter comes to the party with me and I come up with a great job!

I have just about got bead soup ready to send and could even have it off today with some luck, but in the night I had a brainstorm and now want to make a particular thing I think Niky could really use and have fun with (as an added extra that she can use whenever she wants to down the track sort of thing).  Wish me luck everyone!!!!

I have been working hard on getting my murrini order ready to send and have come up against a little hurdle..... my Frog Song murrini which is like a swimming little frog and one of the UGLIEST murrini I have ever made is sold out.  You might think this sends me the message that what I think is ugly others can use and make beautiful, but I find it hard to imagine making more of that ugly cane.... Maybe I should look at this as an exercise in self discipline, but these murrini look more like a frog that got squished on the road by a car than anything else to me.  Maybe I should make some dead cane-toad murrini just for fun.... now I like that idea quite a bit more!

I have made a few beads lately and seeing as I have been on a mission to catch up on orders, both informal and formal ones, I made ANOTHER belly dancer bead.  Why the capitalisation on another you might ask, and well... so far I am up to about belly dancer bead number 14 and still not happy.  This one I managed to reduce the silver glass I was using as her coin scarf and discoloured the side of her belly.......aaaarrrgh!  I shall have to get onto another belly dancer bead and I am sure that when I make one I think is good enough (its for a well-respected lampworking friend) I will breathe a massive sigh of relief for sure!

Making haste.....slowly!

Geeze, I know I have been really slack on my blog lately. I think it is a combination of feeling guilty over taking so long to finish my murrini collection and also (strangely enough) for not blogging for so long. Its a weird thing guilt! Sometimes I get so caught up in life that I can't even melt some glass and torch myself into my own glassy universe. My "Glassverse" is where I work to create a thing in my hands that is at least representative of what I picture it in my head. I must admit that as my lampworking / flameworking skills improve, I am feeling slightly less frustration with the deficit between my vision of my art and the end product...Well most of the time ;-)

I am about to ramp it up to a new level and head off to Loren Stump level II next weekend......aaaarrgh! He is a BRILLIANT teacher, but once again I will be taking a course where I am the least experienced person there and voted most likely to bugger stuff up. I suppose I need to keep my mind firmly fixed on the fact that my journey starts from where I am now and not a comparison with someone elses artistic journey. Last time I went to Loren's course I almost went into a depression of sorts where everything I had made previous to the training was crappy, I could see nothing but the faults and now that I knew better, glass works that had been my pride and joy were now a collection of errors and techical faults I couldn't see past. Its funny, but it took quite a while to drag myself out of the doldrums artistically and yet I could not wait to light up the torch when I got home........ I just sat and stared at the flame, my mind an empty vessel at the time and I walked away many times before I felt brave enough to dip in the toe and actually make something.

This time I am determined to bypass all the self absorbed perfectionism and work through it so I can recover the joy in producing the glass art I love as soon as I return....... hmm, might take some seriously good chocolate to guarantee that though!

Enough philosophising..... I have been making loads of little phone charms lately as a use for all those tiny experimental beads that were testing new colours or reactions of colours. I have been selling them via my Mum for $5 each and I am quite happy with that. She has been selling heaps of them to friends and family, next I will have to pay her a commission I suppose - but she has always been happy to support me in this way. I really am a lucky lady when I look at the big picture!

Death of a cocky, birth of a flamingo!

Well after applying myself to making some lovely pink feather murrini (and some white with yellow for sulfur crested cockatoo's I will use later) I spent quite a lot of time making a very busy and quite large Pink Major Mitchell cockatoo bead......... it broke!!!! I think it was a combination of working a bit too large, being obsessed with the small details and not keeping the whole thing evenly warm..... and using one of my old mandrels that had the cheap crappy bead release on it (kept for making spacers ONLY).

After feeling "in my waters" that there could be issues with the cockatoo, one of which was just too much detail and very busy looking even before it went into the kiln, I thought I might make something else that required pink feathers........ a flamingo! I really slapped this one together, but yet, the kiln gods were pleased and this is what came out!!!!

A horse of course!

Yup, I've been making some horseheads again. I have worked very hard to improve these and even though each one is unique (sometimes in a dodgy way) I seem to have a really good one I am happy with come out about 25% of the time.

A very lovely lady from the Aussie beadingforum who is into horses asked me if I could make a few up, so here is one of them. There is lots of fluff on the pic, but you get the general idea. My early horse heads were much more trojan and stylised looking, but these latest version are more true to life. I had to really study some photos of local horses to see where the muscles of the neck actually lay!

The really funny thing about the horse beads is that whilst I enjoy making horse beads I actually rather dislike horses in real life. This dislike was courtesy of looking after my friends horses for her after she was out of hospital and I managed to get bitten, kicked and thrown about before I realised I was feeding them in the wrong order.

One extra nice thing to add is that I was part of a glass swap on Aussie beadinforum with lampwork and glass slumping to make something to the theme of Seaside. There are some lovely work as you can see below. It is great to see how everyone can take a different theme and make something unique with it